Pieces
by JumpinPopTarts
Summary: …You probably don’t remember it, do you Harry? That time in the hallway when I offered you my hand" Draco's thoughts on that one pivotal event, and the way their lives continued afterwards, never together, but never quite apart...HxD Oneshot.


**Pieces.**

by JumpinPopTarts 

_Hi guys, I'm baaaaaacccccck! And with more Harry Potter yumminess! _

_Actually, I didn't think it was all that yummy; I wrote it right after Rumour and then hid it away, but my Muse found it today and insisted that I put it up! So please, forgive me if it's a bit ...er....bad?_

_Cookies for reviews! praise/crit/boredom all welcome!_

**ooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo**

…You probably don't remember it, do you? That time in the hallway when I offered you my hand. Your first day at Hogwarts was probably filled with far more important memories; meeting Weasley or Granger (sorry, even now I can't bring myself to use their first names.), seeing the castle for the first time, maybe something so mundane as the Sorting Hat's song, or that first dinner in the Great Hall.

I heard on that day that you'd never seen a magicked banquet before. Back then I only felt scorn for that; seeing it as some sort of bitter proof of my superiority. Yet now, remembering your round face and wide eyes, I feel something else entirely.

You turned me down, of course. If I'd been smart, I wouldn't have taken it so badly; maybe shrugged it off and then wheedled myself back into your favours a few weeks later.

But I was _eleven. _And so were you. Grudges are surprisingly durable when you're that age.

Plus, I was Draco Malfoy. Draco _Malfoy;_ and this was the first time I'd met someone who didn't understand what that name meant. Or even someone who, as you did later, understood and ignored it completely. 'Malfoy' was an all-expenses-paid ticket to getting everything you want in life.

Unless, apparently, that thing is Harry Potter.

Father was furious, of course; I spent a whole Christmas break being followed around by his frosty glare. I still got presents though, of course, to keep up appearances; couldn't miss an opportunity to remind everyone just how filthy rich we were, now could we?

That was my next tactic, you know, to try and buy you. The brooms for the Quidditch team were a double-edged sword; it got me into the team and showed you my intimidating wealth, but by being in the team I also had another chance to befriend you. Had you made one move, Harry, you could have had one of those brooms too; no matter what my new Slytherin teammates said or did.

You never did, though. Plus, you got your Firebolt, so none of it really mattered.

And then… well, you and I both know what happened after that. The next few years saw the second great collapse of the wizarding world. It sucked us both into the maelstrom; on different sides. Mine was the wrong one, I'll admit it now. Not only because of what I did (or almost did.), or because of the cruelty I saw in those years, the deaths, the fear, the blind destruction.

It was all of that. But what was infinitely more painful, for me, was simply that you were on the _other_ side.

You see, something in my life broke that day when you refused to take my hand. A crack appeared across my pampered world and for the first time I looked around and saw that all of it was thinner than eggshell. I no longer believed my father's lies, Harry, neither did I believe that power and greed were the only things that would bring me happiness.

So why didn't I leap free and come to you? Ah, Harry, it must be so easy for someone like you to ask such a question. From birth you have been planted firmly on the side of the Good. You were a hero before you could talk. You were the innocent martyr through the entirety of your childhood; miserable, skinny, picked on by those despicable Muggles but oh so _noble_. Yes, Harry, you know it's true.

My life was never like that. Whilst the wizarding world whispered _Potter _into their pillows as a symbol of hope, of freedom, my father sneered and crushed and ruined until _Malfoy_ became a name parents used to scare their children. The name they murmured, helpless, when the bailiffs were hammering on their door.

I grew up breathing the fetid air of wealth and power over love and weakness. Through that, Harry, and through the realisation that came on the day you rejected me, the cold edge of my world became infected by the thing I had been told to despise the most. Weakness. Compassion. Love.

With that came the fear. Without compassion I could have killed Dumbledore as bidden. Without compassion, I would not have screamed as the Dark Lord branded me with his mark; I would not have felt my heart writhe in my chest, my own body cursing me for what I had allowed to happen to it.

It turned me inside out, Harry. On that first day at Hogwarts I was your opposite, your equal. But on that day, though you didn't take my hand, you took another part of me and with it, you pulled me towards you. Toward your side. I fell; half into your world, the Good, with my childhood, my name and my Father dragging the other half back.

You are in this state, Harry, because you were the hero of one world.

You should try being the villain of two.

I should hate you, I suppose. For twisting all I'd ever known from under me. For a while I did, once I had realised what you had done. Perhaps that was what allowed me to treat you with the hatred, the scorn that I did whilst we were together at Hogwarts. Perhaps that was what formed the curses on my tongue, what made me say things to your friends that no person should ever have to hear.

I was hearing different versions myself, you know. Every day. They came from my own Father's mouth.

I've never spoken to anyone about those years, you know. During that time, that single crack in the eggshell spread to every corner, until it crumbled from within. I made friends through fear, scorned those who prized me for my looks, became shallow and cowardly. My life was in pieces; not only on the outside; where I was cocooned in a school I loved and hated all at once, and trapped by a family I wanted to please and kill in equal measure. I was broken within too.

There were things buried so deep in me then that I doubt even the Cruciatus would have pulled them out. Even now I only voice them because they concern you. Here, standing in the litter of aftermath, it feels almost as though I am returning something that belongs to you, and always has, for all that it has been hidden in the back of my head for all these years.

I loved you, Harry Potter. The line that separates that love from hate was far finer than I had anticipated. I don't know when it started; how I came to notice the tiny things about you, to feel heat when you laughed and ice cold when you cried. All those times when you felt alone, Harry, you were carrying me along with you. When Diggory died, when Black did, then Dumbledore and the spirit of Hogwarts with him, I felt everything that you felt. The thing that you seized in me on that first day kept us bound together. Even now I can feel it.

It hurts so much.

As you must be hurting now; though you cannot show it; lying here, pale as death, in this cool white ward.

There are stars outside the window. If you opened your eyes you would see them.

But of course, you won't. You haven't opened them since the Dark Lord crumbled, dead, at your feet.

They say you simply stopped, you know, closing your eyes as though easing a headache. Granger and Weasley were there to catch your fall, thinking it was a faint. You didn't respond to their shouts.

That was six months ago, Harry. Would you believe it?

They still haven't stopped chanting your name.

…Looking at you, like this; it's almost like being back at school. You spent more time sick than any other student, I swear. I can still picture you clearly; woozy with skele-gro, your bedsheets littered with chocolate frogs and wellwishers' cards.

But we're not in the Hospital Wing anymore. The gashes on your body were not made by Quidditch pitch madness, and Madame Pomfrey won't be appearing any time soon to shoo me back to my dorm.

The stars are beginning to fade now; the sky turning dark blue, then burnt orange. The sunrays glint off your glasses, laid on your bedside table in case you reach and wake for them.

There is a film of dust over the lenses now.

I reach out and take your hand. I don't really know why I'm doing this; after all, you've already turned me away once, and reminded me of that a thousand times afterwards. I close my eyes and behind my lids I see all the pieces that remain of me. All of them are trembling; thin and shivering with a sudden, faint idea.

For the first time, I am letting myself hope.

I squeeze your hand; it's not a proper handshake but the tubes fastened into your arm will let me do no more. Your hand is limp but, strangely, it is mine that feels cool. I can't help but smile at that; even like this, you are still more alive than I ever was.

Moments pass. What am I waiting for? You are not here and I must be a fool; to have sat here all night and spilled my innermost thoughts to you. I allow myself one last squeeze and tell myself to let go. _This is folly_, says the voice in my head that sounds more like my late Father every day.

Yes. This _is_ folly.

I should go.

…_wait_!

Between my fingers I can feel the slightest of pressures. The smallest answering squeeze.

Am I imagining it? I don't know.

Another squeeze, I am sure of it. I feel as though an owl is beating its wings beneath my ribs. Suddenly everything seems so simple, like a puzzle piece finding its place at last.

One day soon you will wake and tell me the truth about this moment. Maybe all this is imagined, and you will wake remembering nothing of my words, of me. Or maybe, still worse, you _will_ remember each word, and hate me for every single one of them.

For now I choose to believe that this is redemption, choose to resurrect the faith that died within me long ago and place it in that tiny, warm touch.

Finally, Harry, I have earned the right to take your hand.

And the pieces of my life begin to fit together once more.

**oooooOOOOOOOoooooo**

_A/N: I actually don't read Harry Potter fanfiction all that much, so please forgive me if this scene has been way overdone by other people; I've never read one of these before so, if it sounds like I'm copying, I promise you that I'm not. _

_ANY MORE HARRY POTTER IDEAS?? SEND ME A MESSAGE AND I WILL WRITE THEM FOR YOU! :)_


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